The Smaller Parks/Former Cricket Grounds
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The Social World of Nottingham’s Historic Green Spaces Church (Rock) The Forest Cemetery) Waterloo Promenade The Arboretum Elm Avenue, Corporation Oaks & Robin Hood’s General Chase Cemetery Bath Street Cricket Ground The Meadows Cricket Ground Queen’s Walk Fredrick Jackson’s Map, c ͘1882, reproduced courtesy of Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham THE SMALLER PARKS/FORMER CRICKET GROUNDS (Victoria Park, Queen’s Walk Recreation Ground and St Michael’s Recreation Ground) Compiled on behalf of the Social World of Nottingham’s Green Spaces project team by Dr Judith Mills FOREWORD In 2013-14, the University of Nottingham’s project The Social World of Nottingham’s Historic Green Spaces saw a small group of academics collaborate with Friends, history and heritage groups as well as individuals interested in the city’s green spaces and the City Council which owns the spaces, to research the creation and development of Nottingham’s oldest parks and open spaces ͘ This was followed in 2016 by a Public Engagement project that resulted in a number of events including a play based on the research, a month-long exhibition, workshops for children, a website and some published articles. Conversations with representatives from some of the groups involved suggested that they would find it useful to have a simple listing of the sequence of events around the creation and development of the parks and open spaces. The results of these conversations are a set of reports - Fact Files - which summarise information about the spaces created as a result of the 1845 Enclosure Act. Sometimes the quantity of information is considerable, and sometimes it is quite scanty. As well as listing the facts, the reports also aim to illustrate some of the concerns and issues that surround the creation of the green spaces and give a flavour of contemporary attitudes to health, recreation and leisure which underlie their conception. At the end of each report is a list of sources and suggestions for further reading for anyone who would like to take their interest further. There are five reports The Arboretum The Forest The Public Walks The Smaller Parks/Former Cricket Grounds The General Cemetery and the Church (Rock) Cemetery They are summaries of research carried out during 2013-14, and are concerned mainly with the period 1845-1914. Judith Mills ACKNOWLEDGMENTS None of this work would have been possible without the support of the Green Spaces Project team, led by Professor John Beckett and the Parks and Open Spaces teams of the City Council. The contribution of and collaboration with the Friends of the Arboretum, Friends of the Forest, Mapperley and Sherwood History group and the other volunteers was also invaluable to the project as a whole. Also invaluable was the support of the staff at Nottinghamshire Archives and Nottingham Local Studies where many of the original documents are stored and cared for. All photographs and images in this report are courtesy of Picture the Past (https://picturethepast.org.uk/) and Nottingham City Council, unless otherwise stated. i THE SMALLER PARKS Contents page Introduction: The 1845 Enclosure Act 1 Background to the Creation of the Parks 2 St Michael’s Recreation Ground 2 Bath Street Cricket Ground 3 Victoria Park 4 Meadows Cricket Ground / Queen’s Walk Recreation Ground 4 Cricket matches on the Meadows 6 Football on the Meadows 7 Other uses 7 M.S. & L. Railway and Victoria Embankment 7 Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading 9 Cricket in The Meadows: a scene from the project’s specially commissioned play Breathing Spaces by Andy Barrett, performed August 2016. Photo: Jo Wheeler ii St Michael’s Recreation Ground Bath Street Cricket Ground The Meadows Cricket Ground iii Introduction: The 1845 Enclosure Act At the beginning of the 19th century the boundaries of Nottingham were (roughly) from Castle Road in the west to just the other side of Huntingdon Street in the east. The southern border was the river Trent and Gregory Boulevard now approximates the northern boundary. Most of this area was farm land - some owned by the Borough Council but much in private hands. People lived and worked in the area surrounding the Market Place (now Market Square) and St Mary’s Church.f The northern edge was Parliament Street with Broadmarsh marking the southern limit of the town. According to the website A Vision of Britain Through Time, in 1841 the population of Nottingham was 72,309 people, living in an area about 1 mile wide and ½-¾ mile high, with the odd off-shoot along Mansfield Road and Derby Road (GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, URL: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/datavalue/20702 ). Inevitably, this densely packed population combined with poor Staveley and Wood Map, c.1832, sanitation led to high mortality rates, especially infant courtesy of Manuscripts and Special mortality and Nottingham was used as a case study in Collections, University of Nottingham the 1840 Government Report on the Health of Towns. Other Government Inquiries promoted gentle exercise and ‘rational recreation’ as a remedy to some of the social problems of the period f An obvious solution was to build more houses on the fields surrounding the town but as well as many being in private hands, they were protected by ancient privileges held by the town’s Burgesses who, for example, had the right to graze cattle and sheep on the fields (whoever owned them) after the harvest had been collected. An Inclosure Act was required to overcome these rights - though today this is more commonly referred to as an Enclosure Act. Empowered by Government inquiries and a better understanding of how disease was transmitted, a group of Nottingham’s leading townsmen drew up an Enclosure Act which was - eventually - adopted by the Borough Council and presented to Parliament. It received Royal Assent on 30 June 1845. Two key clauses in the Act ensured that between 125 and 130 acres was set aside as recreational space to be used by the people of Nottingham. Although three Enclosure Commissioners were appointed to oversee the revocation of the burgesses’ rights, lay out the new roads and other infrastructure, and survey and sell building plots, it was the responsibility of the Borough Council to negotiate where the green spaces should be sited. Having agreed with the Commissioners on location, the Council then had to fence, lay-out, manage and develop them for public use. A number of sub-committees were set up: the Enclosure Committee (not to be confused with the Enclosure Commissioners), the Race Committee, the Arboretum Committee and so on. These eventually were united into the Public Parks Committee and then the Public Parks and Burial Grounds Committee. Today, they have become the Parks and Open Spaces service. 1 Background to the Creation of the Parks The parks now known as Queen’s Walk Recreation Ground and Victoria Park were originally created as cricket grounds. According to a W H Wylie in his book Old and New Nottingham, published in 1853, there were four cricket grounds in Nottingham. One was at Trent Bridge and therefore outside the remit of the Enclosure Act (and potentially outside the authority of the Borough Council). The other three were on The Forest, in the Meadows and on the Clayfield. The Forest cricket ground was in the middle of the race course. The exact location of the other two fields is not known but was probably close to the site of the post-enclosure grounds. In addition to the two cricket grounds, about 1 acre was allocated for a small recreation ground known as St Michael’s and land was set aside for public bath next to the Meadows Recreation Ground, but never built, despite the plan being revived in 1910. Like all the new public spaces, they were managed on a day-to-day basis by the town’s police force.͘ St Michael’s Recreation Ground The Enclosure Act allowed for up to 130 acres of land to be allocated to public recreation and utility. By October 129 acres had been allocated to public walks, cemeteries, Arboretum and other public recreation spaces, leaving one acre in the Clayfield ‘at the disposal of the Commissioners’͘ Eventually this acre was identified as a small plot of land just off St Michael’s Street and Millstone Lane (now absorbed into Huntingdon Street). Initially, very little was done to develop the site. 1852 Residents next to the site complained that it was a great Nuisance to all in the Neighbourhood in consequence of the numerous bad characters assembling there every day, but more especially on Sundays, when they amuse themselves by gambling and gratify their evil propensities by throwing stones at the houses and are continually breaking the Windows and Chimney Pots, and if any remonstrance by made to them, they abuse the person and threaten further mischief, we are all convinced that if allowed to continue, it will be a School for vice and the demoralizing of the rising generation. The Council decided to hand the land back to the Inclosure Commissioners for housing, but the Commissioners must have refused it as by 1858, the Council were developing the site for recreation. 1858 £250 to be spent on resurfacing the grounds, building a lodge with drinking fountain and dog trough, and gas lighting. Public urinals to be built on a corner of the site. Alderman Heymann offered to buy gymnastic poles and other apparatus for the park ‘at his own expense’͘ 1877 Horizontal bars and swings were installed. The area became known as St Michael’s playground. The park is still shown as ‘Recreation Ground’ on the c ͘1913 Ordnance Survey map, but by the 1930s, part of it was designated as car park, though the Lodge was still standing.